*Quote from The Week – marvelous publication.

I’ve transcribed myself and paid to outsource the job. A rational actor who can afford a transcription service will pay for it so they can spend their time on analysis and writing. I learned a lot when I transcribed my own interviews; I knew my data inside-out before I even started any systematic analysis. But I farmed out the job as soon as I had the money to do so. There truly is no glory in this kind of dirty work.

I’ve only reviewed proposals for small requests (<$10,000) aimed at supporting the “one-man-show” version of a thesis or dissertation. I make funding recommendations based on the project and not on the task – in other words, I’m inclined to give the proposals I support (the ones I go to the meeting prepared to put on the gloves for) what the student is asking for. A strong proposal convinces me that the research question is important and that study design is sound and feasible. In the successful proposal, the student has already convinced me that s/he is the expert, so I can trust that these students know what they need better than I do – transcription included. That said, in comparing two equally strong proposals where one asks for transcription assistance and the other requests support that is more directly tied to the collection of data, I’ve seen committees favor the latter and tend to do so myself.

This could be misguided. Students need support for finishing their projects as well as for starting them. Maybe these small grant competitions are biased towards data collection because they assume the recipients can get dissertation fellowships to support them in the later stages. I understand that things operate completely differently in the film world, where filmmakers can more easily get funding for post-production after they’ve emptied their own pockets and accumulated their own debt to gather their footage. Perhaps artistic and capitalist types like to invest only when there is a high level of certainty about completion, and scholarly organizations like to help get things off the ground.

-Sturdy laptop of your choice. I’m currently using a MacBook but am also a big ThinkPad fan. Look for sturdy hinges.

- I’m currently reviewing applications for a student research award. Committee members have all different perspectives on what sorts of expenses are acceptable for a graduate student. I roll my eyes at the students who want money to have somebody else transcribe 20 interviews for them. (Do it yourself! I did. You’ll know your data inside out! It’s good for you. Just like exercise.) Others roll their eyes at the students who want to modestly compensate themselves. (Pay their rent over the summer. Who gives them the right? Back when a student was a student….). But go ahead and write in a line for the ipod of your choice next time you submit a request for funding. It has so many uses. Of course, it’s great company on a long plane ride. But the $20 griffin italk attachment turns it into a digital recorder. The digital recorder is essential even for people who aren’t conducting interviews. At some point, you will start to fall behind on your fieldnotes. At this time, I start dictating essential points in the evenings before bed – sometimes even as I’m falling asleep. Admittedly, this practice is not as good as writing up fieldnotes, but it’s tons better than falling totally behind and failing to document descriptions, insights, questions, and processes that you’ll need down the road. The ipod also doubles as an external hard drive. Wipe off the music, and a big one can back up your documents and data. Finally, ipods have high street value all over the world. If you run out of cash, you can wipe it and hock it – pay for a few extra interviews, or to change your plane ticket, or other unanticipated costs.

- I packed my digital camera for the same reasons tourists do, but ended up using it extensively for research purposes. The digital camera substitutes for a photocopier or scanner. Don’t forget the charger.

- Outside the US, a SIM card and some pre-paid minutes allow you to stay in touch. Text-messaging internationally is cheap and receiving calls is free. You need an unlocked cell phone to make the technology abroad work for you. Allow plenty of time to request the unlock code, as the phone companies here can be a little resistant. Pack the charger!

- Your handheld GPS unit doesn’t need to be fancy – just functional. In fact, all the bells and whistles are unlikely to be very helpful for research purposes. I use the Garmin etrax. It’s reliable, basic, easy to use.

- Name Brand Batteries. Make sure you have more than an adequate supply. The left-overs can be used for endearing yourself to colleagues, research assistants, subjects, or general do-gooding.

- DVDs for Backup – With Sleeves and Mailers. Backup on Sundays. Drop a password-protected (yes, IRB!) DVD addressed to yourself at your home institution in the mail each week.

- CDs. My fieldsite has few, unreliable, and very slow internet connections. Being able to burn a CD with 30 articles in an area related to somebody’s area of interest or share some podcasts has helped me endear myself to a few people I’ve worked with. One of the greatest privileges US scholars have is the ease with which we can access free information. It feels great to be able to share. Pack a sharpie too.

- Podcasts: distraction, stimulation, for sharing, whatever. Download more than you think you’ll need before you take off.

- USB splitter – if electricity is spotty you’ll want to be sure you can charge as many of these devices as possible while the it’s on.

- Adapters & power strip – obvious. Bring extras, just in case and for making friends.

- Wipes and dust-off to keep your electronics functional & clean while you’re working.

Most people would agree that in the context of causal conversation, it’s impolite to ask, “So what about [insert worst thing you can imagine happening to one's child here]? Aren’t you worried about that?” Yet as departure day nears, people are asking me this question multiple times a day. I’m afraid I’m going to lose it the next time somebody asks. Have I educated myself about the risks? Yes. Have GC and I had serious conversations about these that include planning for emergencies? Yes. Are health and illness randomly distributed? Do we have the resources to keep ourselves healthy? No. Yes. And sheesh; of all people, social scientists should know this cold! Logic combined with a little bit of statistical knowledge goes a long way in helping us justify the series of decisions surrounding our the decision to take the family to the field this summer. But I don’t feel compelled to argue my case here or to the individuals who casually ask me questions that would make any parent’s blood freeze.

I know the question is asked out of curiosity and without malice, but the question I hear is: “What kind of mother would expose her small children to unnecessary health risks for the sake of her career? Only a reckless, selfish, and very bad one! What kind of mother are you?” The problem is insensitivity to a pretty obvious type of role conflict – one that do-gooder liberal academics pride themselves on being attuned to.

Though I’ve had lots of helpful conversations with scholars and fellow adventurers who have made similar decisions, I’ve found surprisingly few resources and literature addressing this issue.  Fieldwork and Families offers some interesting perspectives on the problem but, as expected, no clear answers or even ready responses. I haven’t been able to find any blogs about traveling in remote-ish locations with little ones — probably because the demands of scholarship and family life in these settings leaves even less time for writing about it. With any luck, diaper washing and fieldnotes won’t totally sabotage my big plans to document some of the more personal and tedious aspects of our big adventure in service to the discipline. Happy Mother’s Day!

- Identity theft

- The infant-toddler, 1-2 punch

This Foundation for a Better Life billboard campaign to spread positive values has been puzzling me for a few years. Of course, I immediately wonder how they assess its impact. Surely they don’t rely on the unsolicited letters of praise inspired individuals send to them. Do they?

NSP’s main point – the time to engage in public sociology is after tenure because spending too much time and energy on that while you’re junior might cost you tenure, and then you’ll never have the chance to make an impact as a leader in your field. There’s really nothing to argue with there. After tenure is clearly the optimal time for public engagement. But I still disagree with the “rational” approach of waiting until then to contribute here and there in a public way.

I think of the public aspect of my career the same way I think about exercising and saving money and being charitable.* It’s a habit. And if you’re waiting until you get all your ducks in a row – until you have the excess time or money or the job security – to start doing it, you’ll probably never do it. Which is fine. Not everybody cares to and not everybody should. (Though we are all supposed to exercise and save. Maybe even give. Right?) But if it is important to you (as it is to me) to have a public dimension to your research, a regulated and regular effort towards that end from the beginning may be the best path. This is not to say that I, junior faculty member, should be spending lots of my time writing research reports and engaging in other public sociology endeavors that will suck up my time and prevent me from meeting the benchmarks my institution sets for me. Great opportunities for engaged scholarship arise here, and there and I’d be foolish not to pursue them. But like so many things, the tricky thing is how to regulate and limit involvement my in these.

In terms of an investment of time and energy, spending 2 days a month on “public” projects is a tithe. I think the analogy to this religious practice is a promising one. Tithing takes discipline, and it is a sacrifice, particularly for those of us who are not very wealthy. But it also sets important limits on what one is required to give. Ten percent. No more no less. Why? Religious people who tithe do it because it’s what God requires. But I think the tithe resonates with people because in the grand scheme of things it’s so… reasonable. I know that ten percent of my salary is not going to save the world or even change it, but it’s a reasonable and tangible guideline, and I like it. If everybody did it, the world probably would be a different place. There are strong secular expectations for the fortunate to be charitable, but these expectations are unclear (though we all would probably agree that Brittney Spears and the Clintons were stingy last year and that the Jolie-Pitts were not), and they say nothing about how the “rest of us” ought to behave.

Boundaries and guidelines can be quite freeing, and applying the principle of a tithe to the public face of my early career has been helpful. My thinking on this is rooted in my understanding of how habits govern my own life. But it also rests on the fact that my research agenda centers on a “timely” social problem and waiting about 5 years to start joining the broader conversation might be a big mistake. So here I am with a research agenda in its infancy and dying to blow my horn in the arrogant way Tittle warns about. Yes and no. I have a pretty tight reign on that instinct, and a not-quite-paralyzing fear of embarrassing myself by speaking too soon. My nascent research agenda does not equip me to be proposing solutions and telling people how things should be done. But I think I can make a relevant contribution, primarily by voicing some of the many questions my research to-date has raised. These are things I don’t have answers to but would like to someday. And they’re questions we should be asking as research and activism on HIV transmission in high-prevalence contexts proceeds.

So that’s where I’m at on the public sociology question right now. 2 days a month. Now the question about what to be doing those two days? To be explored in a future post.

* Lest this post seem self-righteous, brining financial discipline, exercise, and time management into alignment has been an ongoing struggle for me. Still going.